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That's an additional £5,800 just for waiting two weeks to make a transfer; a great deal as long as you don't desperately need the money straight away.

With the ability for the proceeds from your foreign property sale to be worth thousands more or less depending upon which day you make your transfer, repatriating your earnings clearly warrants some preparation.

The currency markets may be volatile, but there are ways to protect yourself from the risk, or use the fluctuations to your advantage.

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Proceeds of €200,000 from a German property sale currently converts to £173,400

There are several different ways to transfer your money, but before selecting the best tools, you need to understand the current state of the market.

Articles on the latest exchange rate movements will inform you whether the pound is currently in a strong or weak state compared to its recent performance.

This helps you to gauge whether you would be better off transferring now or waiting for the markets to improve.

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Selling your property isn’t the only solution to make extra cash from your home. If you have a bit of extra space and bit of spare time on your hands, you may want to consider these thrifty tricks.

Remember that, because you are transferring from a foreign currency into sterling, you are looking for the pound to be weak, as this means you will get more GBP for your money.

With the EUR/GBP exchange rate currently at an eight-week high of £0.866, you might decide that transfer using an instantaneous "spot transfer" is the best option.

If you already have the money, but exchange rates are not favourable, you can use "limit orders" and "stop loss orders" to protect yourself and wait for a better rate.

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The EUR/GBP exchange rate currently at an eight-week high

A "limit order" sets an exchange rate higher than the currency market rate at which you want to transfer your money; if the market strengthens to that point your money is automatically transferred.

Meanwhile, a "stop loss order" works the opposite way, specifying a minimum exchange rate you are happy to transfer at - below the current going rate - so that your money is exchanged should the market weaken before the exchange rates get worse and you lose out on more money.

Used together, you can protect yourself from losing out should the market weaken, while leaving yourself open to benefitting should things improve.

You don't have to wait for your foreign property sale to have been concluded before you plan your currency exchange, either.

Forward contracts allow you to fix a favourable exchange rate in place for up to two years, giving you plenty of time to sell your property and still benefit from the strong rate you secured, even if the market has weakened significantly since then.

If the exchange rate is not favourable, you can use automated rate alerts to inform you when the market has recovered to what you consider to be a beneficial exchange rate and then take out a forward contract if you still have not sold your property.